The Sorkin Notes

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As usual, we got some good and some bad out of Entourage tonight—but on the whole, the season is definitely playing out better than it promised to. (Remember that craptacular first episode? And the one a few weeks ago that ended with noogies?)

First off, the good: Eric FINALLY kicked Sloan’s ass to the curb. Seriously, this is a comedy. We don’t need weeks and weeks of back and forth between a character and his ex-girlfriend. Eric, commence to cheating on your new girlfriend with your crazy-hot new assistant Kate Mara, and leave Sloan way, way back in the dust. She’s annoying. But that’s a plus. Maybe we’re done with this Sloan relationship for good. (They haven't been together for TWO YEARS?)

More good: How rare is it to see a pair of really gifted actors together in one scene on Entourage? (Answer: rare.) But when Jami Gertz and Gary Cole had their big-ass fight, it was almost like we were watching an entirely different show. Line of the night: “You can’t fuck for shit!” It’s also great that the writers have been able to expand Cole’s role this season, creating a character who has nothing to do with “the guys” at all, but whose story arcs are actually interesting. It’s guys like Andrew Klein who make Entourage seem like a real reflection of Hollywood—and his emotional meeting with Aaron Sorkin from behind jailhouse glass is the kind of story that seems weird enough to be completely true. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were based on something that actually happened.

And that sort of real-life fun is what I was hoping for when security expert Peter Stormare showed up. Stormare is awesome and hilarious and scary all at the same time, and I had high hopes that his character would be totally over-the-top, but in a believable way. Instead, pretty much every scene with the security team was stupid and too far-fetched. Running drills with Drama, in which the team throws him into a tub to secure him? A waste of five minutes. They probably should’ve skipped right over this and gotten to the stalker—who apparently left his driver’s license in the couch cushions. (Not a great idea, stalker guy.)

What I really wanted out of this plot was a) Stormare being awesome and b) a peek into what type of security system big movie stars might actually use. (Out of curiousity—I’m not planning on stalking anybody right now.) I got neither. But hopefully Stormare can step it up next week.

Overall, though, a decent episode.

Grade: B-

Stray observations:

-- I don’t know exactly why, but I found Beverly D’Angelo’s fat little fingers flipping Ari the bird to be hilarious.

-- “I’ve got your room wired,” says the security man to Vince. Where is that going to lead?

-- So, what celebrity will it turn out that Sloan is banging to annoy Eric? It can’t be Seth Green, they’ve gone to that well one too many times. How about Jamie Kennedy?